Month: October 2017

OMG what can I possibly write about love, its everything in our lives, it keeps us secure, safe and strong and provides us with care, comfort and kindness. Mr S and I aren’t soppy but we try to show love in our own little ways and I hope we do the same for our children too. We always tell each other we love each other, every text message has a kiss, I love you is the last thing I say every evening to my family and we have a little catch phrase, I love you, love you more, love you most ..

In planning this post, I thought about my favourite love songs, films and books for inspiration. After reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Professor Snape became my all time romantic hero. For romantic films, Love Actually does it for me every time. I love my music and there are so many powerful love songs, however The Beatles Something gives me the tingles as it’s such a beautiful song.

However, love isn’t a song, book or film it’s a feeling, a comfort and something we can all show in little ways every day.  My favourite definition comes from the Bible and Corinthians, yes its read at every church wedding but the words are powerful and offer strong advice.

Image from wwww.favim.com

 

 

My kitchen is my happy place in our home. It is cosy, light and comforting and it’s the room where I spend most of my time, I do the normal kitchen chores here, but I also use the table to sew on, help the children with their homework, write up blog posts, do crafts or spread my newspaper across the table and enjoy every section. I spend time in the kitchen doing my happy things, I love baking and cooking and my kitchen is full of gadgets and accessories. The radio is always playing in my kitchen too, nothing beats a little kitchen disco.

We have transformed our kitchen since we moved into the house in 2004, we’ve had an extension and part of the original kitchen is now a shower room. I am so proud of the design and how it fits our family life perfectly. My one vision in designing the kitchen was that I wanted the table to be the centre piece, the table where we sit as a family for meals, do homework and play. By this table, we have a window which looks out onto the front garden and which I decorate for every special occasion. Another special request with our kitchen design was a tall thin cupboard for my brushes, steam cleaner and ironing board, it’s the little things which make me happy!

I love the special touches in my kitchen which personalise our space, there’s Gromit who keeps me company and gets dressed up for special occasions too. My lightbox is so much fun and changes with the events and themes of the week. I have my drawer full of baking goodies, moulds, cutters, and a bright cutting board with colourful knives. I also add colour with a variety of season coloured bunting.

So the kitchen is my happy place where I get to do my favourite things, bake, cook, eat, dance and write either on my own or with my friends and family.

 

 

I am useless at telling jokes and I have one joke I am able to remember.  What do you call a donkey with three legs?  Wonkey.  Boom, boom.

I might be rubbish at telling jokes but I appreciate humour.  I grew up watching Victoria Wood, French and Saunders, Julie Walters and have always liked the more satirical , current affairs programmes like Spitting Image, Have I got news for you, Drop the Dead Donkey.  However there is a programme which makes me laugh so much I cry. It’s a bit of a guilty secret but I adore You’ve Been Framed!  I never laugh like this in real life but I crack up and laugh myself hoarse when I watch it.  I’m as much of the entertainment for my children as the clips.  I put this down to being a healthy release from the stress of everyday life.  Everybody needs to laugh and as I’m useless with jokes I find my laughter in silly video clips.

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We are live in a beautiful small seaside resort, known for its timelessness and traditional seaside customs.  Ice cream is therefore a big thing in our town and there are a number of excellent local ice cream parlours where fresh ice cream is made on site.  I never have ice cream in the freezer at home, ice cream is always a treat for the beach and a chance to sample the most amazing flavours.  Whilst I am a total chocoholic  I prefer a fruitier flavour in an ice cream although this can be complemented by a little chocolate,e.g. raspberry and white chocolate. I like that I never know what is going to be on offer at the counter, the ice cream is made daily and offers a huge variety, it’s unusual to have the same flavour twice!

Ice cream is always a treat, it may be our (slightly unhealthy) snack as we play on the beach but it’s fun and yummy.   I love that we have a little tradition that our special reward at the end of the first day of the school year is always a trip to the ice cream parlour and I’m hoping this will continue to college days.

Along with fish and chips, ice cream is one of those special seaside foods and I’m grateful to live somewhere where I can indulge my love of  ice cream.

Mr S and I are very different with our memories of childhood holidays. He has happy memories of annual beach holidays in the UK and European coach trips, whilst my family holidays were haphazard, I remember a holiday to Bournemouth and the Isle of Wight when we were young, some road trips to northern Europe and a couple of family holidays to sunny Europe in my mid teens.

As a couple, holidays have always been important to us, we work hard and play hard. Before children we had some amazing holidays, Australia, the Caribbean and cruises. We saved hard for every holiday and would have a luxury holiday every few years with a UK based holiday in between. When the children arrived, we discovered Butlins and it’s now a very special place for us. We ventured abroad together for the first time as a family in 2013, my 40^th birthday present was a family holiday to Mallorca, and we have been abroad many times since, we love the sunshine, pools and beaches. For today’s #blogtober17, I’m doing a best and worst holiday.  I feel a little guilty that our best wasn’t a family holiday, but perhaps that is still to come (Disneyland, USA?) However, I will always have very special memories of Mallorca as our favourite family destination.

My best holiday – Australia 2002. Mr S is a huge cricket fan and we went on an organised Ashes tour to Melbourne and Sydney. Thanks to a generous exchange rate, we stayed in the best hotels I have ever stayed in. Our room in The 4 Seasons in Sydney overlooked the Opera House and was stunning. It was just the best holiday, I fell in love with Australia and got to visit all the places I had dreamed of, the Opera House, Bondi beach and Pin Oak Court, to those non Neighbours fans this is the real life Ramsey Street. Looking back this was our pre wedding honeymoon. On a boat in Sydney harbour on New Year’s eve we made a resolution to get married in the coming year, which we did in a quiet ceremony in August. We did return to Australia again in 2006 and it was another brilliant holiday, but nothing beats the magic of our first visit to Australia.

Worst holiday – Christmas (I can’t remember the year it’s still a blur) We had a romantic idea of Christmas in Cornwall and found the perfect venue, a cottage on a farm, where we imagined walks in the countryside, open fires and enjoying home cooked meals, for which I had brought recipe books etc..  The reality was a little different, it snowed heavily and the roads were treacherous with snow and black ice. We would have coped with this if the central heating had been working but it was very temperamental and we were freezing, the limited kitchen meant my grand cooking ideas were difficult to realise too. On Christmas day, after becoming a little stir crazy inside, we tried to get out of the cottage and the car slid on the black ice into a wall, fortunately with minimal damage. It was at this point we admitted defeat and as soon as the thaw began we left early for the comfort and warmth of home.

 

 

I used to be goal driven, above are a few examples of my goal setting and planning. I think I was trying to take control of my life at this time, it was a time of great uncertainty for me and the goals and plans helped. I am pretty good at sticking to a plan and realised many of my goals in this period.

I feel incredibly lucky to be in the place I am today, I don’t have any burning goals personally or professionally, however I keep myself amused with little projects and a wish list. For today’s #blogtober17, I’m sharing my current wish list which is as near as I get to setting goals at present. It is not in any particular order and is simply a list of things I would like to achieve one day!

1. Run a marathon (just one, London preferably)
2. Visit Disney World with Mr S and the children.
3. Go to New York (the no.1 on my places to visit list)
4. Perfect that capsule wardrobe!
5. Learn simple dressmaking skills.
6. Be mortgage free by 50 (we’re on target)
7. Learn to kayak properly and row across our bay.
8. Lead a greener lifestyle, grow my own veggies.
9. Read voraciously.
10. Live the healthiest life I can, happily!

I’m looking forward to reading others’ goals and see if any inspire me to add to this list.

I love this poem by Wendy Cope and it sums up beautifully my husband’s attitude to buying me flowers. He is very kind and generous in so many ways but he simply doesn’t understand why I would like a bunch of flowers, in his reasoning there’s no point buying them as they die! This is the opposite of my dad whom I always remember buying my mum flowers. I’ve tried to change Mr S’ opinion but after nearly 20 years, I am resigned to his ways. Fortunately, I have lovely friends and family who give me flowers on birthdays and special occasions and I also often receive flowers as thank you gifts at work. It’s a lovely treat to receive a bouquet and I love the sensory delights of flowers, the smell, colours and shape. One of my favourite shops in town is the florist as she is so creative with her bouquets and known for sourcing different and unusual flowers. It’s lovely to have a little look in her shop, to be inspired and choose something new.

My favourite floral display is a simple vase of tulips in a single, bright colour on my kitchen window sill, they bring a vitality and sparkle to the room in the early days of spring. For me fresh flowers in the house are a beautiful treat for us all.

By a lovely coincidence, on World Teachers’ day, education is today’s theme on #Blogtober17.  First of all I am a teacher and I love my job. I believe in the power and good of education. I was one of the lucky ones to benefit from a free education system, a good comprehensive school and then university with no fees and a small maintenance grant which allowed me to become the first member of my family to graduate. It saddens me that if I were 18 today, I would not go to university, the cost would be too high. How many amazing potential teachers feel the same in a profession which is facing a recruitment crisis?

I suppose this will turn into a little manifesto today as I believe education can help our children all around the world to start to come out of poverty, to give them opportunities and to broaden their horizons. Knowledge excites and empowers us all. We need to make education stimulating, relevant and inclusive. Our curriculum needs to allow teachers to be autonomous and creative, to allow play, exploring and all types of learning, to emphasise creative subjects and to celebrate everyone’s strengths, academic and non-academic. It also needs fair funding.

Despite my concerns I can’t imagine doing another job and genuinely hope that teaching will be the sole profession in my working life. Children are amazing and it is a privilege to work with our young people and to teach, guide and support them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its day 4 of #Blogtober17 and the word is date. I’m writing about Mr S’ and my first date, a November night in 1998. I met Mr S in Chicago’s nightclub in Bristol on Halloween and we met up a few days later in a local steak restaurant. The irony of the venue is that both of us were too polite to say we were vegetarian, so we both ended up with a very limited choice from the menu!

Our first date was the best first date, it was so relaxed and comfortable, we didn’t stop talking and both said far more than we would ever dream of to a new friend. The conversation was honest and open and I think we both had a feeling that this was going to be something special. By coincidence, a friend of Mr S was also in the restaurant with his family and being introduced was another sign that Mr S was as excited as I about a possible future. It was an evening full of anticipation and hope and as we left we agreed to see each other at the weekend, I still remember the butterflies in my stomach and the most amazing feeling that love was in the air…

Thank you to all who have read or responded to my posts so far. The start of the week is busy work wise for me and tonight I’m on a night out with friends (I know on a weeknight!) but I’m looking forward to catching up with the #Blogtober17 posts from tomorrow. Happy writing peeps.

Day 3 of #blogtober and the theme is cars. I have recently written a blog about my life in cars here

https://seasidesparkles.net/2017/07/15/baby-you-can-drive-my-car-x/

However I feel that I should write a few new words as part of the challenge, so here’s a little piece on Mr S’ sexy car!

Mr S is a very sensible person and makes very considered purchases, especially around cars. He researches price, fuel economy, features etc.. and is very good at negotiating a price. This approach matches his life, sensible, family orientated and a planner.  Mr S bought a new car recently and after careful consideration he chose a Citroen C4. However despite all his research and negotiation it wasn’t until he had paid his deposit that he realised the number plate was SXY.  My sensible husband now looks like he is going through a midlife crisis with a personalised number plate and one which gets noticed a lot!  He’s learning to live with the plate and it’s one of those little things which I think will become a family joke for many years to come when Daddy had a sexy car!